Lack of rain takes toll on region

Today marks the 84th consecutive day without measurable precipitation in Dona Ana County - a situation taking its toll on the JCJ Ranch. The drought has made rangeland grasses sparse. "It's getting awful thin," said ranch owner Chip Johns. "It's just bloody terrible, and I don't know what we're going to do." Johns has had to buy supplemental feed since last December to keep cattle alive on his 250,000-acre, south-county ranch. And feed prices have sky-rocketed over the past year, he said. Ranchers are among those feeling the pain of an extreme drought plaguing all of southern New Mexico, parts of Arizona and most of Texas - a region also plagued by fires related to the dryness. The last measurable precipitation at an official gauge on the New Mexico State University campus occurred on Feb. 3, said Tom Bird, meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Santa Teresa Station. It was snow - equivalent to about 0.08 inches of rain - that fell that day, part of a severe winter freeze that hit the region. But before that, Bird said, the last rainfall was 0.01 inches that fell Dec. 31 - the only precipitation for that month. No rain fell in November. Some 0.42 inches fell in October, he said, taking the seven-month precipitation total to "barely more than 1/2 inch." The historical average, meanwhile, for that same time is 3.5 inches. "You're about 80 percent short on the rainfall you're supposed to have gotten," he said...more